Discussions on Geography and geospatial technologies

The new version of Yahoo! Widgets (formerly Konfabulator) now includes quite a few Yahoo! centric tools including a Yahoo! Maps widget. After I heard about the new version on SpatiallyAdjusted I checked to make sure that the WebMap Widget we posted a couple of months ago still works, and all is well.

For those of you who weren’t reading back then, the WebMap Widget allows you to view OGC compliant WebMapServices and search by address. We included a couple of default sites but the real utility of the widget is for you to use your own WMS site (ie raid Mapdex).

The BBC has an interesting article on the scanning and modeling of heritage sites in Africa. This is along the same lines as some of the work that Sue and I have worked on here in the US and are starting to work on in Japan (now if we can just talk someone to sending us to Japan on their dime 🙂 ). Much of the work to date has not contextualized the individual structures in their landscape which is what we are trying to push in the presentations we have been involved in with Trevor Harris, our committee chair.

Although Landsat is NASA’s most well-known satellite program, other missions are providing a wealth of information about our Earth. Aura, a satellite which was launched July 15, 2004, collects data that are used for studying the composition, chemistry and dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere, including ozone levels, air quality, and climate. At the recent American Geophysical Union conference, maps based on Aura data were presented showing the levels of Nitrogen Oxide (a precursor to ozone formation) in the eastern US.

An interesting article from the BBC. While we spoke to Dr Warner primarily about sensors that record reflectance values of the surface of the earth, there are several sensors in orbit that record nonterrestrial phenomena such as weather and, in the case of this article, pollutants.

As we announced in Episode 21, avsp Contest #2 is now underway. What you have to do is send the answers to the three questions below to contest@veryspatial.com by January 12, 2006. Eveyone who answers the three questions correctly will be included in the drawing that will take place on January 14, 2006. Winners will be announced on avsp Episode 26, our half year episode!

The questions:

1) Which US research satellite was recently encountering technical difficulties?2) What web-based mapping project seeks to redefine geographical boundaries of the US based on peoples perceptions as opposed to the existing state or county boundaries?3) What is the phrase Sue coined in episode 19 for the new Web 2.0 mapping interfaces?

Please include your name in the email. We will contact the winners for their mailing address after the drawing. All entries must be received by 11:59 PM PST January 12, 2006 to be eligible. Only one entry per person.

The alphabet soup in the title is a boon for the open standards movement. The OpenGeospatial Consortium (OGC) announced yesterday that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has accepted the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) Implementation Specification. Now available as IS0 19128:2005, the WMS specification is currently a widely supported standard in modern geospatial products for serving and accessing information.